Kululu and Mois: Head Games
by Nitocolus
Summary: Angol Mois has always been a bit of a ditz, but when she finds some of her memories are false or simply missing, she decides she could use a head doctor. Who does she turn to? Residential asylum prospect, Kululu! The problem with their therapy is that the Yellow Devil seems to have his own share of missing memories as well. Of course, that's just a coincidence. Right? Kulumois.
1. Chapter 1

Kululu sat in his lab, typing away on one of the many keyboards of his massive computer set-up. His spiral glasses reflected the light of dozens of screens that illuminated the darkness of the lair he had established far below the Hinata household. The cynical science officer of the Keroro Platoon should have been inventing some new weapon or device to aide in their 'brilliant' leader's world domination plans, but he had more important things to do.

The term 'important', of course, meaning 'what's important to Kululu', which at this moment was counter-hacking his rival Tororo, (who had broken his firewalls and spammed his computers with troll faces,) while watching footage of Aki Hinata, the mother of the kind Fuyuki and the tempermental Natsume Hinata, showering. Being the perverted genius he was, he could multitask these two objectives easily, typing up the codes for a virus with his eyes glued to the other screen.

Spying on people in the shower had been a favourite pasttime of Kululu's since the day he'd set up base beneath the Hinata's household and he admitted, without the slightest trace of shame, that he loved well-devolped women, like Aki. Of course, her ditsy personality and hidden, violent power were also quite appealing to the yellow frog. Lately, however, he felt less enthusiastic when watching Aki in the shower, a strange sensation building whenever he did. If Kululu had to describe it, the only thing he could compare it to was like if he had eaten a poor batch of curry that he himself had made. It wasn't just that watching Aki shower now felt wrong - he almost felt bad for doing it.

Kululu dismissed the thoughts, finally breaking eye contact with the perverted footage to send his finished virus to Tororo's computer. The twerp thought he could hack Kululu's network and get away with it, huh? He was in for a huge surprise. Kululu allowed himself to lounge back and listen to Tororo's panicked screams rattle in over the microphone Kululu bugged in Tororo's lab, basking in his triumph.

'The only thing that could make this moment any better,' Kululu thought to himself, 'is some curry'. The thought made him chuckle some, little 'ku's filling the atmosphere of his lab over the screams of Tororo. His chuckles grew into fullblown laughter, wicked and vile, resonating from every crevice of his darkened lab and reducing Tororo's once blaring screams into a soft background noise.

"Like, what's so funny Sergeant Major-san?" a voice as pure as the freshly-fallen snow called out, cutting through Kululu's laughter without raising her voice. Kululu snapped back around, startled. There wasn't much in the universe that could unnerve the yellow Keronian, but the young blonde girl in a school uniform standing before him was top of that short list.

"Mois!" Kululu managed to get out before coughing and regaining his composure, "How long have you been standing there?" Angol Mois, royalty of the Angolian people and the one tasked with the destruction of Earth, (a task she never got around to completing,) smiled her flawless, sparkling smile that set Kululu trembling.

"I've been here since you've been working on your virus, Kululu-san." she stated honestly, "I waited for you to, like, finish and what not. You could say, patience is a virtue?"

Kululu blinked behind his thick glasses. It was unsurprising that Mois would be so kind and wait for anyone to finish what they were doing. She was just that kind, just that pure. It terrified Kululu to think that there could be someone, anyone, in the entire cosmos that could remain so loyal to her friends, stay so honest, and be so nice to everyone she ever met, even him. Especially him; he was a pervert, a sadist, and evil and twisted by most everyone's perceptions.

He tore his eyes away from her amber ones that seemed to lock him in and noticed she was carrying a plate.

"What's that?" the scientist asked.

"Oh, like I almost forgot about it! You could say, getting forgetful?" Mois smiled again before answering, "I know how much you like curry, so I cooked some up for you."

"That's thoughtful." Kululu said nonchalantly, gesturing for Mois to approach him with the plate. He thanked her and took the plate from her hands, digging into the meal while Mois stood watching his computer screens.

"I can see you're watching Okaasama showering, again." Mois noted.

Kululu shrugged. Not being field operatives, Kululu and Angol Mois worked together behind the lines, filling the multitude of duties that it required: logistics, technical support, communications, technological development, administration, finance, etc. Needless to say, they spent a lot of time together deep underground. She had seen a number of his perverted entertainments or twisted experiments and didn't judge him or talk about such hobbies behind his back. He supposed he should be grateful for such integrity, but it further unnerved him.

"And I can see you're not attached to Keroro's hip." Kululu snipped, "Tamama run you off again?"

"Like, yeah!" Mois whined, "I haven't gotten to spend time with Uncle in weeks!"

"Maybe it's because he has you doing all his chores for him." Kululu stated sarcastically.

"Well then he should, like, have more free time to spend with me, right?" Mois asked.

Kululu ignored the question, hoping that it had been rhetorical and that Mois wasn't really that simple. He couldn't understand why she was so ditsy when she came from such a powerful and intelligent people. They were kind, true, but with Mois it felt like there was something... wrong. As if there was a piece missing, or a block in her mind that kept all of her from coming out. Sometimes Kululu would hear dark mutterings from her, or wake to see her watching him sleep for hours. Kululu had even heard her retort one of his sarcastic statements with an equally edgy quip that startled him. They were rare moments, but happened increasingly lately. He wondered, briefly, if her collision onto the roof of the Hinata household had mangled her thought processes, but couldn't get very far into the line of thinking as he felt a pair of eyes boring into the back of his skull after he finished his curry.

He turned his head and immediately flinched back at how close Mois had gotten to him, almost trance-like in her stare. She snapped back into reality at the sudden movement and her eyes lit up again.

"Mois, why do you always get so close to me?" he asked, his heartrate slowly returning to normal.

"Okaasama finished her shower and there was, like, nothing else to watch but you finishing your curry." Mois explained, smiling, "And I like being close to you since we're such good friends and all. You could say, BFFs?"

The word 'friend' sent Kululu's mind reeling. The implications. The commitment. The actual, solid fact that someone didn't hate him, but in fact, liked him. It made him blush and scoot further away from his tormentor. Before he could question her sanity or request her to move further away, Mois started talking again.

"I was reading an article the other day about couples and how, like, the girl's IQ will change to match the boy's IQ." she stated randomly, "So, if a smart girl spent a lot of time with a dumb boy, her IQ would drop. You don't think that's true, do you?"

"It doesn't sound any different than when friends adapt to the tastes and intellect of each other. Hang out with smart people, you'll get smart." Kululu snickered, "Simple as that."

"Oh, well that's a relief." Mois smiled, "Then I don't have to worry about getting dumber hanging around Uncle because I hang out with you a lot and you're, like, the smartest guy I know!"

"So you admit Keroro's a duff?" Kululu started laughing at the thought that Mois' perception of her 'uncle' could actually be negatively affected.

"Well..." she rubbed the back of her head nervously, "His ideas are pretty silly and he hasn't conquered Pekopon in the 20+ volumes we've been here. I still love him, though." Somehow this conversation gave Kululu a twinge of envy that undercut the ego-boost he got from Mois' compliments to his intelligence. Feeling that envy was an overrated emotion, Kululu turned his attention back to his computer moniters and pretending to work.

"If you love him so much, why don't you just tell him already?" Kululu asked, humourlessly.

"I couldn't do that!" Mois gasped, "It'd be, like, too sudden! I just need to, like, keep dropping hints and earn his love by demonstrating my loyalty to Uncle. You could say, hopelessly in love?" Kululu didn't know whether he should explore the ironic truth of her statement or not, for her infatuation with Keroro was certainly hopeless.

"You've been trying this for how long now?" the Keronian asked, "Just confess and if the feelings are unrequited by now, then just quit trying with him." Kululu chuckled at his own advice.

"Do you really think I should?" Mois asked timidly.

"I honestly don't care what you do, kukuku," Kululu shrugged, "I just hate hearing you gush on about Keroro."

"Like, thanks Sgt. Major-san!" Mois flashed another innocent smile. Had anyone else heard Kululu's response, they'd be offended, but Mois was one of the few people who could read Kululu's speech; an insult like that was actually fairly close to a compliment in Kululu's book.

Mois ran out before Kululu could say anything, leaving him alone in the darkness. He continued to stare at the doorway for awhile after she left, contemplating whether his advice would work or not. Knowing Keroro, he'd either be too dense to understand what Mois was confessing and Mois would continue trying to win her 'uncle' over forever. And Kululu would have to hear about it forever, a strange sense of envy and anger fueling his typing while she talked about slaving away, happily, for her beloved uncle. Yet the alternatives made him feel worse. If Keroro understood the confession, he'd likely turn it down bluntly, hurting Mois deeply. After all, Mois had loved Keroro for how long? Thousands of years by now. Kululu might like to see others in pain, but even he wouldn't wish that kind of heartache on Mois.

The final alternative, however, was by far the worst for Kululu: the off-chance that Keroro loved Mois the same way she loved him. It would be an endless love fest between them and a constant, scarring reminder at how lonely Kululu was. Not that he minded being lonely, but sometimes it made him angry or just plain hurt him when others showed off their loving, successful relationships. And if Keroro returned Mois' feelings, he would be just as open and annoying about it as she would. The relationship would also influence their work, no doubt. Kululu actually dreaded the thought of Keroro's usually hair-brained schemes and get-rich-quick schemes being centered around love.

He couldn't admit to himself the deepest reason why he didn't want Keroro to love Mois back. If Keroro and Mois became romantically involved, she'd move up in rank and be by Keroro's side constantly. That meant that Kululu would be all alone underneath the base. He almost laughed at the thought of how much that scared him; not much, if anything, scared Kululu, but being alone after having such a constant companion... It would be like a giant hole was always present in his life.

Kululu shoved these thoughts to the back of his head and continued typing, actually focusing on his work to ignore the mess he had potentially started.

Angol Mois had to force herself from skipping to Keroro's room, joy absolutely radiating from her. She knew that Kululu would have the best solution; he always knew how to solve problems. The thought of Kululu's advice had caused some trepidation, of course. What if Keroro didn't love her? What if she made a fool of herself? Still, Kululu was right. She'd been trying to earn Keroro's favour for long enough; it was time for her to get a definitive answer.

She reached Keroro's door and stopped abruptly, worried again. What if Keroro did reject her? What would she do then? After all, everything she had done with the Keroro Platoon was for its leader. If he rejected her, what was there to do? Keep working? Forever? The thought made her cringe. She didn't mind work, but only if there was cause behind in. What cause was there if she could no longer earn the favour of Keroro? Why would she even bother working then? She couldn't bring herself to destroy the planet while her friends still loved on it, even if Keroro rejected her, but she wouldn't leave Earth for very long without finishing her work there.

'Maybe I should, like, have a back-up plan first...' Mois thought while staring at Keroro's door, 'Why would I bother working for the Keroro Platoon if not for Uncle?'

As she pondered this, she thought of all her friends. She was willing to defend each of them, but to work for them? Her work was usually so thankless and monotonous that the only thing that made it worthwhile was the fact the object of her affection requested it of her and the occassional praise its completion brought. Why would she keep doing such tedious paper-pushing with no reward, no goal in sight? What could she benefit from it? The only fun part about her job was hanging out with Kululu, whose presence always promised some intelligent conversation or entertaining science experiments that involved pain, death, destruction or some other format Mois found interesting.

'Kululu...' the name bounced around her head for awhile. He was a constant friend, an opposite that completed her. 'Like, Yin and Yang.' Something registered in her head about opposites attracting and she felt a wave of confusing, jumbled emotions flowing through her. She immediately pushed her thoughts away, gasping and taking a step back from Keroro's door as if it had burnt her.

What she had just thought felt like a sin for some reason. It had been a harmless imagining of her and Kululu being more than friends. It was a nice thought, very similar to her Keroro thoughts, except that most of what had happened in her Keroro fantasies had already happened or was currently happening with Kululu; they lived together, worked together, talked all the time, even trusted each other with personal secrets. The only thing that hadn't happened was the actual romance; the flirting, the kissing, the marriage, etc. It felt wrong to suddenly put Kululu in Keroro's place, but it made too much sense to ignore. Mois felt deeply conflicted and ran from Keroro's room to a nearby bathroom.

Safe within the locked confines of the room, resting on a toilet, Mois began to analyze her thoughts. She was in love with Keroro, right? Her uncle whom she had believed for the longest time to have won her over with brilliant romantic gestures as a child. Of course, the more she thought about it, the more she remembered that wasn't right. Keroro had even admitted that none of that happened the way she explained. She tried harder to remember exactly what happened, but she could only see brief flashes of memories before searing whiteness threatened to overtake her. After three failed attempts to reach into her memory, Mois finally gave up. Even she, usually so ditsy, realised that something was wrong.

'It's like my brain doesn't want me to remember certain things before my arrival to Pekopon.' Mois thought, frowning at the thought, 'You could say, I need a shrink?'

Mois stood and exited the bathroom, emotionally exhausted by the ordeal. She needed to solve this dilemna, this inner-turmoil before she could confess her love to Keroro. After all, if one starts questioning whether they really love a person or not, it's not wise to confess love to them. Her memories were false or incomplete or a combination of both and she needed to figure out why. Only a handfull of people on the planet were capable of handling such a case. She only trusted one of them.


	2. Chapter 2

Kululu spared a glance from his moniter when he heard the door open. Mois had walked in and had begun setting up a lock-in procedure to keep anyone else from entering or even hearing what was happening in his lab. He quirked a nonexistent eyebrow, curious at her actions.

"So, Mois," he began, blatantly avoiding the question he wanted to ask, "how'd it go? Did you wuss out? Or should I be expecting wedding invitations?"

"I guess you could say I wussed out." Mois admitted with a humourless laugh, avoiding Kululu's eyes.

"I knew you would, kukuku." Kululu chuckled.

"I need your help, Sergeant Major-san." Mois stated abruptly. Kululu's attention was all her's for sure now.

"Kuku. Continue?" the Keronian nodded uneasily.

"I can't remember much from before my arrival to Pekopon." Mois explained, "My memory is all, like, fuzzy or completely made-up in places! You could say, really confusing?"

"And..?"

"Well, I need help."

"...And..?"

"You're, like, the only one smart enough that I trust." Mois explained. Kululu blinked at the double compliment, feeling another wash of Mois-related emotions that he forced into the back of his head with the others.

"Let me get this straight..." Kululu began, "You're just now realising something's wrong with your memory and you came to me, of all people, to help you with your psyche?"

"Like, yeah." Mois shrugged.

"I'm usually the one that damages psyches, not fixes them, kukuku." Kululu let out a genuine laugh. This situation was pretty humourous.

"Oh, please help me Sergeant Major-san!" Mois bowed with tears in her eyes and Kululu felt something dangerously close to shame in his heart.

"Alright, alright!" Kululu said quickly. He tapped a key on one of his computer consoles and a red couch and chair came out of the floor nearby, allowing a place for Mois and him to sit. Mois laid down across the couch, sinking into its comfort while Kululu sat in the chair with a notepad and pen. "Maybe you should switch into something more comfortable, kukuku."

"What?" Mois asked, startled by the suggestion.

"I mean, switch into your true form." Kululu corrected, "It might help the memories flow easier."

"You really think so?" Mois asked.

"Maybe." Kululu shrugged, "All the same, I prefer you in your natural form. It's weird seeing you walk around in another person's skin, and coming from me, that's a big deal. Kukuku!"

Mois didn't know how to respond to that; she was used to being the only one to creep out the yellow creeper, and to be honest, he had a point. She nodded briefly before dialing in her phone and switching back into her true, Angolian form. Her bronzed skin returned to its normal tone, pale and perfect as marble, while her hair also returned to the near-white lavender of her Angolian lineage. Kululu noticed that her eyes, like rich pools of honey, remained unchanged, a constant through all her life. His thoughts slowed as he was fixated on the amber orbs, a long-buried, poetic part of his brain comparing her eyes to some kind of portal to her very soul; vast, deep, full of emotion and truth and kindness, always honest.

Kululu twitched slightly, unsure why he had just thought those things. Sure, it wasn't the first time he'd been distracted by a girl's looks, but it was weird to think of the eyes and the soul of a woman, of their inner-beauty, rather than their physical appearance. Not for the first time that day, Kululu worried about his thinning sanity.

"Like, now what?" Mois' voice cut into Kululu's thoughts.

"I'm not sure, kukuku." Kululu confessed, "I guess we just start from the beginning?"

Mois nodded. That made sense, of course: start from her earliest memories and maybe through telling them, the fuzzy details would come back into focus again. She was hoping that with Kululu's help, she could work through the searing whiteness and conquer her memories. Granted, if anyone in the Platoon needed a head doctor, it was Kululu, but regardless of that fact she still held the upmost confidence in him.

"Well, the earliest memories I have are from when I was a little girl on Angol..." Mois began, explaing in surprising detail the crystaline surfaces and beautiful vistas of her homeworld. Kululu tried to pretend as if he weren't interested, but Mois had a surprising descriptive ability that stirred a longing in him to see her homeworld; even if it was only half as beautiful as she had described, it was worth seeing. Mois paused to wipe her misty eyes, the memories of her homeworld having awoken her long-buried homesickness.

"Sounds like quite a fortunate childhood." Kululu said, forgetting his usual chuckle.

"Like, Angol is a happy place." Mois smiled softly, her eyes turning towards Kululu, though he avoided eye contact. "I might've been royalty, but my childhood was pretty normal for our people. Don't Keronians have similar childhoods?"

"Kukuku." Kululu laughed lightly, "You could say that. Until we're old enough for military school, we got to enjoy civilian lives as tadpoles. Of course, mine was a bit traumatic, I guess. Kukuku!"

"Traumatic?" Mois sat up, "Like, how?"

"Well, the only thing I really remember is how I used to be blue before nearly drowning in curry, kukukuku!" Kululu laughed at his own expense, "That, and my siblings are bigger jerks than me."

"That's horrible!" Mois said with sympathy, an emotion Kululu was only familiar with through Mois. He still hadn't gotten used to it.

"Well, we're here to talk about your problems anyway, kuku." Kululu hinted and even the ditsy Angolian understood he didn't want to discuss his childhood.

"Right." Mois nodded, "Now, like, where was I?"

"Something about your cousin." Kululu shrugged.

"Like, yeah!" Mois brightened, "My cousin, Fear! Before she was sent here to judge my progress, we used to have something of a rivalry. She always found me weak for some reason, but was generally nice."

Mois continued to talk about her cousin for several minutes while Kululu pretended to be bored and sketching doodles in his notepad. To be honest with himself, though, he was genuinely interested in Mois' childhood for several reasons: first and foremost, it was Mois and the more he knew about her the less he hoped to fear her; secondly, the Angolians were a powerful and ancient race and his inner-scientist enjoyed learning, especially when it envolved power. He also couldn't help but notice Angol Fear was something of a focal point in Mois' childhood and that, besides Keroro, was the closest thing to a friend she had as a child. He felt he should explore his theory a little more.

"Seems like you and your cousin were pretty close." Kululu noted, sounding bored and not even looking up from his doodles. The doodles ranged from complex chemical formulae to hastily-sketched schematics for various ray-weapons.

"Not really." Mois frowned, "We didn't actually hang out all that much, and when we did, Fear was usually, like, cold and distant."

"Surely you had other friends besides Keroro?" Kululu pressed. Even he had had more than a single friend as a child. Well, the more he thought about it, he couldn't really count any of them as friends from the way they had treated him growing up...

"Other... friends..?" Mois blinked. Her pupils shrunk and Kululu noticed a slight twitch starting in her left eye. Before he could so much as raise an eyebrow at her curious behaviour, Mois clutched her head and gritted her teeth. A searing whiteness had pushed its way into her mind when she tried to think of other friends growing up. Mois had pushed and pushed herself, using her famous willpower to persevere as long as she could, but the best image she could grasp from the blinding fog of her now-obviously repressed memories was the outline of a young Keronian holding a rose. The rose stood out more than anything and startled her with its sharp detail and familiarity. It had been the rose from her Keroro memories, and yet it hadn't been Keroro who had given it to her.

"Mois, are you alright?" Kululu asked, anxiety slipping into his voice. Mois shook her head, breathing deeply and rubbing her temples.

"I..." she began, blinking her eyes back into focus. Kululu saw the brief look in her eye, hard and cold and determined, like flint or steel, and then it was gone, replaced with her typical brightness. "Like, that was weird."

"What?" Kululu asked, his voice rising with tension.

"When I was trying to think of my childhood friends, my head turned all white and fuzzy." Mois explained, wide-eyed and with exaggerated hand gestures, "All I could make out was a young Keronian with the rose that I thought Uncle had given me but, like, it wasn't Uncle! What do you think it means, Kululu?"

"Rose..?" Kululu asked, sweating, "Young Keronian..?" Why were the two things related? Why was it making him feel as if he had forgotten something, as if the two halves of his brain were pulling on each other, trying to close the gap between them in solving this? Why did he care so much?

"I know I've seen the rose before, like, in other memories." Mois said, a finger on her chin in concentration, "You could say, deja vu?"

Kululu kept trying to think, searching his memory for where a young Keronian, a rose and an Angolian were familiar. The question taxed his mind, and where Mois had suffered a painful burst of white heat at the thought, Kululu came up with a yawning blackness that pulled onto his curiosity until it was all he could focus on. He didn't realise that Angol Mois was staring at him until several minutes had passed.

"I think that's enough for today, kuku." Kululu said with forced laughter. Disappointment showed in Mois' eyes.

"Aw, but I was, like, fixing my head!" she protested. Kululu blinked at her childishness. It seemed so familiar, yet foreign. He shook his head. Of course it was familiar! It was Mois, of course; he'd worked with her for years and she had a tendency to be childlike at times. The explanation didn't appease the yawning curiosity in his head, but it kept it at bay for now.

"Tomorrow, Mois." Kululu promised, "I have to go over some notes of my own. Real science-y stuff."

"I love it when you do science-y stuff!" Mois brightened considerably, "Anything I can, like, help with?"

Kululu shook his head and explained that it was personal stuff and Mois blinked, taken aback by the comment; she'd seen him watch girls showering. What was more personal than that? But, being the kind and respectable person she was, she bowed and gave an understanding smile before unlocking and leaving Kululu's lab. She'd spent a long time in his lab, anyway - she should get back to her chores.

After the doors closed behind Mois, Kululu exhaled the breath he'd been holding in and wiped his brow of sweat. He couldn't fathom why the Keronian with the rose was being repressed from Mois' memory or why it seemed so familiar to him. An idea crossed his mind that the rose-carrying Keronian might have been someone he knew, or an allegory for someone he had known. Perhaps some obscure Keronian from his distant childhood with a rose on his stomach and hat? Or maybe the rose was symbolic of romanticism or love for life? With that thought in mind, he immediately suspected Dororo as a suspect. It actually explained a lot: the rose, being about the same age, being a close friend of Keroro and thus a likely friend of Mois growing up, and the fact everyone forgot about the ninja Keronian would explain why Mois couldn't remember him.

Yes, it certainly seemed plausible to Kululu, but it didn't settle the yawning darkness in his head. He could still feel it pulling at his curiosity and knew, with sad certainty, that it would plague him in his sleep. Not even curry could put the nothingness in his head to rest.

Kululu would have to talk to Dororo as soon as possible if he wanted to get rid of the sensation.


	3. Chapter 3

Within an abandoned construction site, nature had begun the slow process of taking back the incomplete buildings. They were to be office buildings before the construction company went bankrupt and had to abandon the project. Weeds had sprouted first, but they gave way to wildflowers and even sparse, young saplings. It was Spring in Japan and the air sparkled with floating seeds and spores given flight by a gentle wind. Atop the tallest incomplete building rested the Keroro Platoon's assassin-turned-pacifist, Dororo.

'How fitting a place to be in the Springtime.' Dororo thought to himself, 'Just as Spring is about life awaking from the dark sleep of winter, life awakens here as well.' Closing his eyes and inhaling deeply, Dororo relaxed even further into his meditation. It was cut short, however, when he sensed a coming, familiar presence. Standing up in one fluid motion, Dororo watched the sky where he knew his teammate would arrive from.

As if on cue, Kululu appeared within sight, riding a simple Keronian speeder. He stopped just short of Dororo and eyed the ninja, expectantly, for awhile. Dororo noted his poorly-hidden anxiety and wondered what could have happened that would unhinge him so much. Regardless of his curiosity, Dororo kept his poise as always, his face betraying nothing but his sage wisdom.

"What is it you require, my friend?" the ninja Keronian asked with a voice that conveyed nothing but kindly acceptance.

"Kukuku," Kululu began with his iconic laugh, "I just wanted to ask you a few questions."

"Oh? And what might they involve?" Dororo asked, surprised that anyone from the Platoon would want his opinion or know more about him.

"Just some stuff from your childhood, kuku." the Yellow Devil explained, "Specifically anyone you might have been friends with growing up."

"It's unexpected that you, of all people, would come to me about my childhood friends." Dororo said, his facade of neutrality collapsing with this surprising turn of events, "I can't help but wonder what you plan on doing with the information..."

"Oh come on, Dororo, kukuku." Kululu grinned, "It's not like I'm going to experiment on them or something - I have Giroro for that. Kukukukuku!" Somehow, Dororo still didn't trust him, but he divulged the information anyway.

"My only significant friends from my childhood on Keron were Keroro, Giroro and Pururu." Dororo recalled after a moment's thought.

"Really?" Kululu asked, "Are you sure you never hung out with anyone else? An Angolian, perhaps?"

"That seems oddly specific..." Dororo gazed questioningly at his superior. "There's something you aren't telling me, obviously."

"I forgot that you're the one with a good sense of perception, kukuku." Kululu shrugged, "Just answer the question."

"If you must know, the only Angolian I knew growing up was Angol Mois, and we hardly interacted." Dororo stated. The answer made Kululu's face twitch into a grin.

"Did you ever give her a flower?" the Sergeant-Major asked. Dororo blushed and took a step back, startled by the suggestion.

"Wh-what's that supposed to mean?!" he asked, startled.

"What?" Kululu shrugged, chuckling, "It's just a question."

"No, I never gave her a flower!" Dororo replied, regaining most of his composure but still visibly irritated. Kululu studied him for a few moments, wondering if he too suffered a memory-block of some kind.

"You sure you aren't just repressing the memory? Kukuku." Kululu asked, circling the ninja. At first, he figured his blue companion would deny it at once, but he actually thought about it for awhile.

"I never gave her a flower." Dororo confirmed, his voice peaceful and wise again, "I had only seen her a few times, once every couple of centuries. I never visited Angol as a child and she rarely visited Keron."

Kululu's triumph shattered and he felt the gnawing curiosity in his mind continue to pluck at his attention. If Dororo wasn't the Keronian that had given Mois the flower, and Keroro had been stricken out already, who else could have possibly given it to her? The only other Keronian left was Giroro and, well, there was no way it was him. Not even in Kululu's most bizzare stretches of the imagination could he picture Giroro, even as a tadpole, giving a flower to Angol Mois.

"Your line of questioning has piqued my curiosity." Dororo stated after awhile and Kululu snapped back into reality, "Whatever is troubling you must involve Mois-dono. If there is anything I can do to help..."

"Don't worry about it." Kululu said, "You've helped enough, kukuku."

"If you don't mind me asking, what is your interest in the matter?" Dororo asked as Kululu turned to leave, "You are not one to help others unless it benefits you, though I must admit you have changed throughout our years on Pekopon."

Kululu spared a glance over his shoulder, trying to think of something witty to say, but instead just said "She keeps me company." He blinked, wondering if he should expand on that or add a trademark chuckle to give it a perverted edge. He could see that, somehow, Dororo had understood what he meant and had turned away to watch the sunset.

Without another word, Kululu left the Lance-Corporal behind, speeding back to the Hinata household. The search had been fruitless, but at the same time it narrowed the possibilities. The Keronian from Mois' memories wasn't Keroro and it wasn't Dororo. He heavily doubted it was Giroro or Pururu. Surely there had to be someone else, some other Keronian. Kululu had lived in the same area as his Platoon-mates, so he knew the likely suspects. Maybe it had been his older brother? He pushed that idea out of his head; he was sure his older siblings would have bragged about being friends with Angolan royalty. The only other Keronian that would have been young at that time that he could think of was himself...

The gnawing in his head pulled him in harder than before, a darkness overtaking his senses and sapping his limbs of their strength. He felt the world lapse briefly and when he could finally see again, his vision was filled with a dangerously-close house. Before he could stop of change course, the Keronian crashed through a window and rolled to a stop in the hallway, his speeder on fire and his yellow skin smeared with smoke and soot. He looked up through cracked lenses to see an angry pink-haired teenager glaring down at him. Even though irritation was clear on her face, there was also some concern.

"What'd you do this time?" Natsumi Hinata asked in a huff.

"I guess I blinked, kukuku." Kululu shrugged, picking himself up from the floor. His arms hurt from the impact and the scrapes, but he wouldn't let it show.

"Are you sure you're alright?" Natsumi asked, her expression softening a little as she eyed the damage done to the house.

"Fantastic, kuku." Kululu said, his voice coated in sarcasm, "Don't worry about the damage; I'll have it repaired soon. If you don't mind, I have a curry bath to take." The comment caused the human girl to shudder in disgust and Kululu took the moment to leave before she had the chance to talk to him more.

Kululu quickly escaped into the lower levels of the house and rode one of his many hidden elevators down into the depths of the base he had built, straight into his lair. He wasn't expecting Mois to be there.

"Mois?" he asked, slightly surprised that she was laying there on the couch he had set up the day before. She had already returned to her true, Angolan form and turned her head to acknowledge him.

"Oh, like hello Sergeant-Major-san!" she beamed at him, "You said we could talk more today."

"I did, didn't I?" Kululu remembered without much enthusiasm.

"Are you alright Kululu-san?" Mois asked, sitting upright, "You look horrible!"

"Not all of us can be pretty, kukuku!" Kululu laughed, twisting the situation into a joke. He switched into a new pair of glasses and prepared his tub with curry.

"I didn't mean it like that!" Mois explained, her voice unnervingly apologetic, "I think you're actually pretty handsome, it's just, with the soot-"

"You think I look what?!" Kululu spun away from his curry bath, Mois' comment hitting him like a slap to the face.

"Handsome, when you're clean anyways." Mois said. Kululu was unsure if she was just being nice or if the comments were genuine. He shook his head and decided to change the subject.

"Well, Mois, I think we should get back to the reason you came here." he said, relaxing into his curry bath. Mois didn't even flinch watching him, "I've been putting a lot of thought into your ordeal."

"You've been thinking about it?" Mois asked. Just as expected, the new topic stopped any more compliments and awkward feelings, "Then you must, like, be close to solving it! You're always so good at problems, especially stuff that involves brains."

'I'm not even close..." Kululu thought bitterly, but grinned anyway. "When you mentioned the Keronian the other day, the one from your memory, I had a sense of deja vu, too." he explained, figuring it was as good a place as any to start.

"Really?!" Mois asked, her eyes widening.

"Yep. But I couldn't say why it felt familiar. I think whoever this Keronian is, we both know him." Kululu pushed his glasses upwards.

"That makes sense." Mois nodded slowly, "After all, if you can't remember him and I can't remember him, we both must be, like, repressing him or something. You could say, a shared memory?"

"That'd be ironic, given that neither of us can remember it." Kululu joked, "A shared un-memory would be a better term for it. Kukuku!"

"Sergeant-Major, that joke was terrible." Mois whined, seemingly sapped of energy by the joke.

"Oh, it wasn't that bad!" Kululu shot back and the two of them returned to their usual composures.

"Anyway, what was yours like?" Mois asked from out of the blue.

"My what?" the yellow keronian retorted.

"Your memory-block-y thing." Mois shrugged, "Was it, like, a burning white light?"

Kululu had to think for a little bit, trying to dig into his repression and recall what exactly had happened. "It wasn't like a white light at all." he explained, "More like a gaping black hole that pulled me in until I quit thinking about it."

"Wow..." the Angolan blinked, "It's like we had opposite effects when trying to remember."

"What are you talking about?" Kululu asked. A few years ago, he would have never believed that the ditsy Angol Mois could ever teach him anything, but he had found that being a ditz didn't mean she was unintelligent. In fact, of all his teammates, Kululu found himself talking to Mois more about science and higher-thinking subjects than anyone else.

"Well, you experienced a darkness that pulled you in, and I experienced a bright light that pushed me out." Mois explained, a smile growing on her face, "You could say, Yin and Yang?"

'What a brilliant observation!' Kululu thought to himself, 'Why didn't I make that connection?!'

"That's ridiculous, Mois, kukuku." the Sergeant-Major said aloud, pushing his glasses up into place. He felt bad for the contradiction between his thoughts and his words, and even worse for Mois frowning, but his pride wouldn't budge on the subject.

"Like, why is that ridiculous?" Mois asked, her lower lip jutting out in a slight pout, "It's just an analogy." Kululu couldn't think of a legitimate excuse so he changed the subject.

"Have you had any luck with unlocking your memories?"

"Unfortunately, no." Mois frowned, "I tried meditating, like Dororo-san does, but everything I tried to recall ended up as a bright, burning light."

"Hmm." Kululu nodded, "I guess we should continue retracing your past."

"I have another idea." Mois said tenderly, not used to contributing her ideas.

"Oh really?" Kululu grinned, his arrogance shining through in a wicked grin.

"Mhmm." Mois nodded, her smile and confidence restored, "We both have repressed memories when it comes to this Keronian, right?"

"Correct." the Sergeant-Major gestured for the Angolan to continue.

"Well, what if we retrace your past to try and track the memory down?" she suggested, "Like a fish in a net."

"Explore my past to pinpoint when my repression began," Kululu nodded, getting a sense for the plan, "and compare it to when your repression begins and see if we can piece together what happened from both our memories."

"Exactly!" Mois exclaimed, positively beaming. Kululu twitched from the bright pureness of it, unnerved, but regained his poise.

"Then I guess we should switch places, kukuku." Kululu stated, getting out of the chair and heading towards the couch. Mois surrendered her spot and took Kululu's psychiatrist chair and notepad.

"These inventions look like lots of fun, Kululu-san!" Mois said, her eyes skimming over the details scribbled into Kululu's notes and doodles with fervent interest.

"Like you can read my chickenscratch, kukuku!" Kululu chuckled, waving an arm dismissively.

"Like, yeah." Mois assured him, "I've read a lot of your notes and experiments and I'm, like, used to your writing style. I can tell this is a sonar weapon of some kind, using a resonation device to adjust to the frequencies of sound that materials are weakest against and, like, obliterate them!" Kululu blinked in genuine surprise and Mois gave a sly grin, "You're not the only tech-head in the platoon."

"Uh..." the Keronian blanked, "Weren't we going to explore my past or something?"

"Oh yeah!" Mois smiled. She crossed her legs and readied the pen and notepad to write her own notes. "Let's start from, like, the very beginning."

"Well," Kululu inhaled deeply, not particularly comfortable digging up old memories, "the earliest I can remember..."

And he went on from there.


	4. Chapter 4

It had been less than an hour since Kululu's therapy had begun. He had covered a lot of ground in a short time, explaining significant situations from his distant childhood and early school years nonchalantly and without much detail. Mois dutifully scribbled notes into the notepad, though Kululu suspected she was expanding upon his designs while he talked. She nodded every now and then, not wanting to interrupt the Sergeant-Major. It wasn't anything surprising or impressive, mostly incidents of neglect from his siblings, disgust from his parents, bizzare experiments and inventions he would come up with, being let into school at an unnaturally-young age, hardly making any friends. He stopped talking shortly after.

Mois blinked at the sudden silence, looking up from her own weapon designs and overly-romantic doodles of her destroying Earth. She saw Kululu just lying on the couch, staring at the ceiling, his eyebrow twitching. "Sergeant-Major-san?" she asked.

"I don't remember what happens next..." he said, "Everything after my first year of grade school to my curry incident; it's all gone!" The yellow Keronian shot up from the couch in a cold sweat. "I mean, I still remember bits and pieces, but there's gaps all over the place!"

"Please calm down, Kululu-san!" Mois clutched the notepad closer to her chest, "I have gaps in my memory, too."

"Of course, of course." Kululu said after a few deep breaths, calming down, "I just didn't think I'd have so many, kukuku!"

"Can you, like, see anything from your repressed memories?" she asked.

"What do you mean?" Kululu asked, "They're repressed."

"Like, I know, but if you dig deep enough, you might be able to pluck a few out." Mois suggested with a shrug, "That's what I did."

"What, you just persevered through searing pain into the unknown for a tiny sliver of a memory?" Kululu asked with a scoff. Mois continued to stare at him with that small smile plastered on her face and the frog realised she was serious. How could anyone, even an Angolan, have that much stamina for something as insignificant as a lost memory? "That's crazy, kukuku."

"You're one to talk, Mr. Sinister." Mois shot back with a wink. The quip briefly stunned the Keronian, but he recovered quickly.

"Well Mois, in a playful mood, are we?" Kululu chuckled, pushing his glasses into place for what felt like the fifteenth time that day.

"May~be." the Angolan sing-songed in reply, grinning and avoiding eye contact with her tech partner.

"Well, I'll just return to lab work, then." Kululu said, jumping up from the couch, startling Mois.

"Wait, Sergeant-Major-san!" she called after him. He stopped and looked over his shoulder at her. "You can't leave without, like, at least trying to delve deeper into your memories! I know we're close to finding the connection in our memories, I can feel it!"

"I don't know what scares me more: your playful kindness or your glowing optimism, kukuku." Kululu joked, though he was still genuinely frightened of Mois' pureness.

"Aw, you can be so mean some times, Kululu-san." Mois pouted, but Kululu could see the playful glint was still in her eye and he failed at hiding one of his twisted grins.

"Alright, alright." the Keronian caved, feeling unnaturally helpful, "I'll give it a whirl, kuku."

"You will?" Mois immediately brightened and Kululu recoiled slightly from the shining lights her smile had created, "Like, thank you Sergeant-Major-san!"

"Yeah, yeah." Kululu waved a hand dismissively, "Let's just get this over with, kukuku."

They returned to the couch and chair, but rather than Mois simply taking 'notes' of Kululu's memories, she coached him on how to power through his repression. Kululu had tried glaring at her, not feeling he needed any help on the matter, but as was typical he couldn't stand to look her in the eyes very long. Finally, he exhaled and tried to recall the memory.

It was his early childhood, before the curry had stained his skin yellow. He had been enrolled into school several years early, his heightened intelligence outshining even those in his advanced classes. Unsurprisingly, students grew to both hate and envy his intelligence. His older siblings, through their false niceness, typically ignored him and left him to his studies and twisted experiments, for which his parents feared him. It had been a lonely upbringing, without love or sympathy from even his closest relatives, but then suddenly...

Blackness appeared, the same void that always dragged Kululu end until its pull became dreadful and unbearable and he had to break away from it before discovering the truth. However, instead of breaking away this time, he continued further and further down the figurative rabbit hole, struggling with the darkness. It felt like he was falling forever, the hidden walls of his memories narrowing as he rushed past them, closing in on him. Genuine fear began to pluck at his heart; what if he never got out? What if he fell like this, forever, trapped within his mind? A few moments later and Kululu had to force himself to keep going. He strongly believed there was nothing to be gained other than the intense case of vertigo he was dealing with.

And then he felt something from the physical world: a warm, gentle, female hand resting on his. By reflex, and from growing terror, Kululu grabbed the hand. The action undid the darkness of his mind. It didn't bleed away, the world of his childhood didn't gently fade in; it was gone within the blink of an eye. As he tried to gain his bearings in the memory, now crystal clear and picturesque, he noticed that he was much shorter and a light blue.

'So I'm a tadpole again.' he thought, bitterly, 'Thought I'd only have to deal with this once, barring the age-regression, of course, kukuku.'

Somewhere, a girl was crying. Kululu tried to look around, but found he had no control over the memory - as if he were watching a film. He had almost forgotten how much Keron looked like Pekopon, the only obvious differences being the star-shaped clouds and the populace of frogs in place of humans. He was somewhere just outside of town, wanting to study lifeforms in their natural environments, maybe capture a few samples to take back home and experiment on. It was rare for him to venture far outside the concrete and plastic and metal of his home city, so this trip was one of only a few prior to his training for the military. He passed several beds of flowers, a personal garden of some green-thumbed Keronian. A particular breed caught his eye, but the memory passed too quickly for him to recognise the splash of red.

Finally the sound of crying grew too interesting for the memory-Kululu's curiosity, though it annoyed the present-Kululu. A familiar voice could be heard faintly in the background of the crying as Kululu drew closer to the source. A few more yards, through a shrub, and-

'No way...' Kululu thought to himself, his breath catching in his throat, 'No frogging way!' It was simply too much, too unbelievable, too wonderful and dreadful and coincidental. It felt like reality was melting, his recovered memory unravelling into a nightmare of unrecognised, long-buried emotions and horrifying jolts of coloured light. It all spiralled apart, twisting into some hellish vision, his mind not wanting to comprehend it. It just didn't make any sense! Alright, so he might have been a little quick to lapse in sanity and might have overreacted, but Kululu wasn't about to accept what he saw in those memories.

He jackknifed on the couch, screaming and his glasses shattering. The sudden, horrid action startled Mois. She clutched Kululu's hand tighter, tears breaking from her eyes as she tried to think of some way to comfort her troubled friend. Within seconds the screaming stopped and Kululu ripped his hand from hers, rolling into a foetal position while he tried to regain his poise. Mois stood and began searching the lab for the one thing she knew would calm Kululu down before finding it within one of the hidden bedrooms of his lair. She unfolded the cloth, aged and reeking of curry, and laid it across the form of the Sergeant-Major. He recoiled at first, but slowly calmed down to a point where he could talk again.

"That was weird, kukuku." he managed, forcing some laughter.

"Like, yeah." Mois said softly, unsure if she should press further, "I guess you saw something bad?"

"I guess it could be bad." Kululu shrugged, still facing away from Angol Mois while curled in his security blanket.

"Did the Keronian die?" she asked, afraid to hear the answer.

"I didn't see much, but I don't think he did." Kululu answered guardedly, not exactly sure of what he saw, "But I don't think anyone'll ever recognise him."

"That bad, huh?" Mois cringed, expecting something crippling had happened to the unknown Keronian.

"Meh." Kululu shrugged again, "For all I know it was all fake, influenced by any outside interference." He hadn't said Mois touching him might have altered his memory recollection, but he let the implication hang in the air and knew she would figure it out.

"Did it feel fake?" she asked.

"I don't know. Is this reality? Kukuku."

"Like, I'd leave philosophy to Dororo-san and Fuyuki-san." Mois smiled.

"So mean, Mois-chan." Kululu joked. He blinked, surprised that he had added an honorific to the end of her name, knowing it had been an echo of his recovered/false memories, from back when he had been more respectful. If Mois had noticed it, she didn't show it.

"You've been through worse." she laughed, sticking her tongue out playfully, "So, do you remember anything that happened at all?"

"Nothing." Kululu lied, "It just got darker and darker until I panicked."

"Oh, I'm sorry!" Mois bought his bold-faced lie with syrupy sympathy, "I didn't mean to put you through that! You could say, a traumatic experience?"

"Mois, it's alright." Kululu assured her, "I just need to sleep."

"Well, alright..." Mois said slowly, traces of guilt still in her voice, "I'll have a plate of curry waiting for when you wake up." Before the Sergeant-Major could tell her it wasn't necessary or thank her, the Angolan was up and leaving the lab. He waited until he could no longer hear her footsteps before he allowed himself to think over the memory.

He knew it wasn't fake; it was too familiar and real to be fake, even though the coincidence of it made him shudder. He hadn't seen the Keronian that had given Angol Mois the flower, nor had he seen the action take place, but he could infer what had happened from the bits and pieces of clear memory he had glimpsed:

A Keronian garden.

A bush of red flowers.

A young Angolan girl, crying in a field.

Kululu knew who the girl was and he knew what would happen before ever seeing the memory, and it had caused him to slip out of his remembrance, to shy away from a truth he wasn't ready to accept just yet.

He had been the one to give Angol Mois a rose.


	5. Chapter 5

Angol Mois, now in her Pekoponian form, had returned to her usual household duties. Laundry was washed, dried and folded. Groceries were bought and lunches were prepared. She helped her Uncle with his daily tasks of Gunpla and laziness, though she was admittedly less enthusiastic than usual. She'd rather be helping with an experiment or exploring her past some more, but duty took presedence to her own desires, not matter how boring it was.

The realisation that she'd rather be in Kululu's gloomy lab, studying psychology and other sciences than helping her beloved Uncle startled her. Wasn't she supposed to be lovesick, ready and willing to jump at Keroro's beck and call? Of course she still loved him, or so she believed, but it seemed like her chores and the things he had her do were so mundane. It seemed like everyday she was either doing his work, buying him Gunpla or standing ready to obey some idiotic command or selfish request.

'Huh.' she thought, raising her eyebrow, 'Where'd that come from?' Her line of thinking had never been so judgemental before, especially about her Uncle and his habits. She was distracted from her thoughts when the green frog quit assembling his Gundam models.

"You know Mois, it's days like this that remind me why life is so, gosh-darned good." Keroro said with a satisfied sigh.

"Why's that?" Mois asked, dutifully. 'Like, is this how my time on Pekopon has always been?' she thought to herself, 'Indulging Uncle's dreams through boring chores?'

"My superiors have, for the most part, quit trying to kill me, for one." Keroro grinned triumphantly at what was a minor victory and Mois suppressed a snigger at his bravado, "Plus they make Gundam models here, and ramen noodles, and all of the anime and manga that I love! Not only that, but there's enough work that I can easily afford my luxurious tastes."

"You do have a pretty nice life on Pekopon." Mois admitted, "The rest of the Platoon is pretty happy here, too." And that was true: Tamama lived in a mansion and had a steady supply of the candy he was addicted to; Dororo, although still forgotten at times by Keroro, had found greater self-awareness and a good friend from his time with Koyuki; and Giroro was happy as long as Natsumi was nearby. Angol Mois could tell from her time with Kululu that he was actually fairly happy on Pekopon; he might give the Platoon a hard time, and vice versa, but they were his closest friends, whether he'd admit it or not. It wasn't much, but it was more than he had had on Keron.

"Yeah, it's just amazing living here." the Sergeant chuckled lightly in contentment, "On days like this, it's hard to believe anything bad can happen, you know?"

"I'd be careful, Uncle. You could, like, jinx our good fortune." Mois warned, "You could say, tempting fate?"

"I wouldn't worry about it, Mois." Keroro waved a hand lazily in dismission, "We've defeated everyone that's tried to defeat us, from Viper to Akuaku."

"Well..." Mois said cautiously, "I suppose we've, like, overcome a lot together." Keroro smiled at her agreement, but Mois couldn't help but feel that there was something wrong witht he situation, as if his calm attitude was premature, that something bad would happen shortly. Maybe the unease came from experience; after all, how many other times had they just been sitting there, building Gunpla models, when out of the blue their world was turned upside-down?

"By the way, Private Tamama is heading over to play for awhile." Keroro said, "Usually you leave when he arrives, but if you wanted to stay, you can. I'm not so stingy that I can't entertain two friends at once." Keroro gave an arrogant smirk that said he was as oblivious to Tamama's rivalry with Mois as Mois herself was.

"Thank you, Uncle, but I already promised Kululu that I'd fix him some curry." Mois explained, declining Keroro's offer. The green frog blinked in surprise; as dense as he was towards her affection, Mois had never declined a chance to be by his side or help him.

"You and the Sergeant-Major sure are becoming close friends..." Keroro ventured. Somehow referring to Kululu in a sentence with 'friend' in a positive manner just didn't feel right. One didn't associate anything friendly with the Yellow Devil.

"That's what I said!" Mois brightened now that the subject centered around the frog that had been occupying her thoughts for the last couple days, but then her face drooped slightly, "But he's never called me a friend."

"Yeah, he's kind of a jerk like that." Keroro snorted. Mois scowled, suddenly offended.

"He's actually very nice, in his own way." she said, barely masking her sudden irritation.

"Gero?" Keroro grinned slyly, "When he's not being creepy or dissecting Giroro, maybe."

"He's not creepy!" Mois was on her feet in an instant, startling Keroro with her hardened eyes and frown, "He's unique."

Keroro was shocked into silence. Angol Mois had never spoken to him like this and he was fearful that he had grievously offended his old friend, but before he could open his mouth and begin forming an apology, Mois' expression softened in surprise, as if she had just realised how out-of-place her behaviour was. She forced a smile onto her lips and straightened slightly.

"I'm sorry for that, Uncle." she bowed respectfully, "It's been a long day."

"It's alright." Keroro said hurriedly, still stunned by her outburst earlier.

"I'm going to go make Kululu his curry now." she said, "See you later, Uncle."

"See you later..." Keroro said absentmindedly while the blonde-formed Angolan left his room. Shortly after Tamama entered, finding him frozen in the same position, a half-frightened, half-awed expression on his face.

"Hey Mr. Sergeant!" the tadpole called cheerfully, but his smile faltered upon seeing his leader, "What's wrong?"

"Tamama, you've gotta help me!" the Sergeant sprung back to life suddenly, sweating nervously.

"What's wrong?!" Tamama asked, sharing in his leader's sudden panic.

"Angol Mois is spending more time with Sergeant-Major Kululu!" the green frog exclaimed, tears streaming down his eyes.

"What?" Tamama deadpanned, not sure if this was true or why it was important.

"Mois-dono - darling, precious Mois-dono - is beginning to spend more time helping Kululu and less time helping me!" Keroro explained, "She's been hanging out with him, conducting experiments and making him curry instead of helping me with my chores!"

Tamama remained silent, unsure how to respond. He loved Keroro and hated Mois, not just for loving Keroro as well, but for being better than him in every way (or so he perceived). Her not hanging out with Keroro constantly was a private blessing, increasing his chances with the Sergeant exponentially, but he couldn't just tell Keroro to forget about Mois; he'd come off as cold and the Sergeant might be offended by the suggestion. Finally, Tamama did the only thing he could do.

"What are your orders, Sarge?" the Private offered his services, against his better judgement. It was his job, technically.

"I want you to go spy on the two of them and report back to me with whatever they're doing." Keroro ordered, "I need to know how close they've gotten."

"Yes Sir!" Tamama saluted and quickly left Keroro's room. After he was out of earshot he grumbled. Keroro, his romantic interest, was ordering him to spy on the woman he hated so his leader could try and bring her back to his side. Tears built in his eyes at the heartache that caused, but he was relieved that Mois seemed to be losing interest in his Sergeant. Before too long, he had reached Kululu's lab without bothering to sneak around; what was the point, after all? Kululu had surveillance everywhere.

The black-blue frog was content to just knock on the lab door and see how Angol Mois and Kululu communicated, but he stopped short when he could hear the two Platoon-mates in question conversing. Tamama approached the vent that their voices were slipping from, finding the topic of their discussion curious. He listened intently, his eyes widening at what he heard.

Angol Mois had immediately gone to Kululu's lab, returning to her Angolan form and choosing to prepare curry from his own stock and kitchen; after all, the fresher the better. She figured that the genius would have been awake by now, but was unsurprised to see him strewn across the couch where she had left him, blanket not covering his feet and a bubble at his nose, growing and shrinking with his snores. Mois suppressed a giggle at his glasses, which displayed the word 'OFF' on each lens. She had watched him sleeping before when she herself couldn't sleep, a sentimentality for the techie-Keronian drawing her towards his unconcious form, but the cuteness of his sleeping habits never failed to bring a smile to her face.

Before too long, the sounds and smells of cooking curry stirred Kululu out of his slumber. His lenses blinking back into swirls while he rubbed the eyes hidden beneath to get the sand out of them. Stretching with a yawn, he was pleasantly surprised to see Mois hand him a plate of hot curry. He thanked her and dug in, watching her as she returned to his private kitchen to finish preparing some tea for them. He laughed silently at the sight of her in an apron with yellow-curry stains on it, but in her regular form instead of the form she almost always did thankless chores in. His tastebuds were almost electrified at how the curry enticed his tongue and he was, admittedly, jealous of Mois' curry talents. Sure, she had more experience with cooking in general, but no one had more experience in making curry than he did, and to have a dish that put his dishes to shame made him feel both ecstatic and envious at once.

"Is it good?" Mois asked, bringing a tray of tea and cups and setting it on a little table between the couch and chair.

"It's delicious." Kululu said. It was too early for him to try and lie. He doubted he could anyway.

"Really?" Mois smiled, her eyes brightening.

Kululu found himself staring into them more, but turned away. He no longer feared her pure heart, but could not look her in the eyes for very long for the new fears he felt when looking at her. Emotions he didn't recognise, things he had pushed away for thousands of years without knowing why, things he had feared and never stopped fearing. It had been simple fear, once; fear that Mois' pureness would overpower him and undo his corrupt soul, make him normal. Now he realised that his fears weren't as simple as that anymore. They were emotions whose names he knew, but that he never recognised. Emotions that stood on the knife's edge of pleasure and pain, bliss and misery. Emotions he was not ready to accept, too afraid to embrace.

And all because of this Angolan from his lost childhood who had, against all odds, found him without knowing their shared past. This Angolan who had went from being one he couldn't stand to be around to one he couldn't stand being away from. This Angolan that filled an ancient hole in his wicked heart. This Angolan that was waiting for a confirmation.

"Yeah." Kululu said nonchalantly, taking another bite, "It's not like how I make it. It tastes... better somehow."

"Like, I made it with a lot of heart." Mois flashed another beguiling smile and Kululu flinched.

"I hope it's not from some hapless Pekoponian's chest, kukuku." he joked.

"Nope, it's a cow's heart." Mois said, her face not shifting in the slightest. Kululu blinked, taken aback.

"Seriously?" he asked, sweating slightly. Mois continued to look at him with the same expression until her mouth twitched, her smile turning into a broad grin before she erupted into laughter.

"Like, no Mr. Sinister!" she said between laughs, "But I got you, didn't I? You could say, pulling your leg?"

It took Kululu several more moments to register that Angol Mois, ditsy and kind Angol Mois, had just pulled a joke on him, and one that involved eating bizzare organs, too. As soon as it clicked in his head, he began laughing loudly, his 'ku's filling the lab and getting Mois rolling into another fit of laughter. They both laughed until they cried, their faces red and their lungs desperate for air.

"That was a good one, Mois-chan." Kululu said between laughs, mentally cursing himself for letting another honorific slip past his guard, and this time Mois did notice.

She didn't say anything, but there was a subtle change in the pitch of her laughter as she tried to catch her breath, a slight blush spreading across her cheeks, hidden by a face red from laughter. It made her feel special, sending her heart soaring. She felt a bit of the white heat in her head shift at hearing her name with the honorific added onto it, a familiarity about it ringing through her head with a sense of almost-recognition, as if she were another step closer to recovering her lost memories. But she didn't say anything. She just continued to laugh and wipe her eyes.

"You know, Kululu-san," she said, drying her eyes, "I really like spending time with you."

"Really?" Kululu snapped out of his laughing, blushing slightly. Another wave of emotions and the nausea associated with them struck him like a wave.

"Yeah!" Mois smiled, the red in her cheeks dimming as her heartrate returned to normal, "I couldn't stop thinking about you while I was with Uncle. You're a lot more fun to hang out with."

"Mois, that's the weirdest thing I've ever heard, kukuku." Kululu chuckled, "No one's ever called me 'fun', kuku."

"I guess no one, like, appreciates a good science experiment anymore." Mois shrugged.

"Not since high school, no." Kululu smirked, "Then again, when I did science experiments, they usually got people maimed, kukuku!"

"And those are the best!" Mois smiled brightly. Kululu was startled by this, unsure whether she was joking or not.

"For being so kind, you certainly like injury and mayhem, kukuku." he noted.

"Well, I do come from a race of planet-destroyers." Mois winked, sticking her tongue out playfully.

"True." Kululu tended to forget that fact, seeing as how she hadn't destroyed any planets for centuries, "So what's the deal with Pekopon? Couldn't bear to see it gone?"

"Like, nope." Mois said, "It's just, Uncle asked me not to and now I have so many friends that live here. I like destruction, but I don't like to destroy what I love. It makes my job, like, really difficult."

"I'm sure you'll outlive our Pekoponian friends and then can destroy the planet." Kululu said bluntly, not even worrying if the suggestion offended his companion.

"I know, right?" Mois smiled, "That makes my job, like, a lot easier."

They sat in silence for a bit after that, drinking tea. It wasn't unenjoyable or awkward; just content. Kululu was left to his own thoughts in the silence and he struggled with his emotions over the Angolan before him. If he had to be honest with himself, she was beautiful in every sense of the word. She was kind, loyal, honest and yet had a dark side that allowed her to appreciate his twisted humour and express some of her own. Her soul was bright and unyielding, strong and resilient, able to weather even the harshest of conditions and the bleakest of situations without fading; Kululu, despite himself, admired such strength. This was only scratching the surface of her inner-beauty; her outer-beauty was just as wonderful and Kululu's perverse thoughts could more than appreciate it, though he always held back in his thoughts of Mois, as if thinking of her physical form would somehow tarnish her purity.

"Have you experienced anymore memory problems?" the Keronian asked his Angolan companion.

"Besides not having any?" Mois quipped.

"Besides that, yes." Kululu nodded. Mois thought whether she should address the '-chan' incident and how it had affected her memory. If nothing else, it might she should at least question why he kept adding the flattering honorific to her name when he had begun doing so shortly after his own bout with memory repression.

"I remember that he called me Mois-chan." she said at last, quietly and with a faint blush on her cheeks, "I think... I think he cared about me a lot."

Kululu had jumped slightly at the information and avoided her eyes, his eyebrows twitching nervously. An awkward silence passed between them and Mois began to look around the darkness of the lab, hoping the tension in the air would pass. She almost regretted bringing it up, but it was worth seeing his reaction; it confirmed that Kululu had indeed saw something in his memories, if nothing else. It also confirmed that, even if he himself wasn't fully convinced, at least a part of the creeper liked and respected her, which made her heart flutter for some reason.

"I think he did, too." Kululu said at last, his voice quiet and reserved. Mois blinked, his voice cutting through her introspection. She turned her head back to him and found his head turned away. He was fighting a blush and had found some bundle of wires on a far wall very interesting for no apparent reason. Mois smiled.

"It's, like, getting late, Mr. Sinister." Mois stood and stretched and Kululu spared a glance at her.

"Tired already?" he asked, "I didn't think Angolans needed sleep, kukuku."

"Like, who said I'm tired?" Mois smiled.

"Why else would you mention how late it was if you weren't tired?" Kululu asked in mock-irritation.

"Everyone else is probably, like, asleep or something." Mois shrugged, "I figured we could leave the house together without worrying about anyone bugging us."

"Afraid to be seen with me?" Kululu tried to joke. What Mois was suggested sounded a little to conspiratory and intimate for his tastes. He knew that Keroro enjoyed private outings with his friends all the time, as did Dororo. But Mois, she was a romantic; Kululu was worried what her sudden request implied.

"Absolutely not!" Mois scoffed, "You're, like, the coolest guy around, Kululu-san!" Kululu couldn't help but snort cynically at her upbeat false praise, unsure whether she was being dramatic or if she honestly believed he was as cool as she said he was. "I just figured you wouldn't want to hang out with me in public with the others around; they'd probably harrass you about it."

"Like I care what the others think about me, kukuku." Kululu laughed at the idea and was relieved that Mois had suggested they leave secretly because of something so trivial and not for some alterior, romantic interest. "If I want to hang out with you in public, I'll do it. I just don't like leaving my lab much, kuku."

"So, you would hang out with me in public?" Mois asked, her eyes widening, "In broad daylight?"

"Sure, why not?" Kululu shrugged, chuckling some more.

"Great!" Mois beamed, "How about tomorrow, around noon?"

"Wait, what?" the yellow Keornian blanked, unsure what had just happened.

"I've always heard about how much fun Pekoponians have with their friends." Mois explained, "Shopping, eating out, seeing movies - all of it sounds, like, so simple but so nice! You could say, soothing like a warm bath?"

"We can cook anything we want here." Kululu shrugged, "Plus we can watch movies that aren't even in theatres yet."

"It's more of an atmosphere, kinda thing." Mois said with an awkward smile.

"Kukuku. Getting tired of being cooped up in the house and hanging out with our loser platoon-mates, I see."

"Well, I wouldn't call them losers..." Mois gave a disarming smile.

"...But you don't like that the only time you leave the house is with all of them?" Kululu finished, "Why not go out alone?"

"Because then it's so lonely!" Mois whined, "I wanna, like, go out and experience life on Pekopon without the whole Platoon tagging along, but I don't want to experience it alone." Almost beggingly, she stuck her lower lip out in a little pout and Kululu turned away, shuddering at the wave of emotions the cute gesture had caused.

"Alright, alright!" he said, flinching back even more at the sudden, dazzling brightness of her smile, "I'll find a Pekopon disguise and we'll hang out tomorrow!"

"Like, thanks a lot, Kululu-san!" Mois continued to smile brightly.

"Whatever! Just turn the sparkles off!"

Little did they know that just outside of the lab, Private Tamama had overheard the whole conversation...


	6. Chapter 6

Keroro gasped at what Tamama told him, the report sounding almost too ludicrous to be real. Surely, the young tadpole was wrong? But one look at the Private's face told Keroro that his youngest soldier wasn't mistaken in his debriefing, though an odd enthusiasm and happiness hung above his head at the news while the Sergeant felt cold inside.

Angol Mois was hanging out with Kululu now.

Why did it bother him so much? He was a little jealous if he had to be completely honest with himself. After all, Mois had been by his side constantly, always trying to make him feel better when he was down, playing audience to his complaining and entertaining his less-than-genius whimsies. Her sudden disappearance from his side left a slight void, a void easily filled by the camaraderie of his Platoon-mates and his close friends, Tamama and Fuyuki. It wasn't this insignificant hole in his life that really bothered him, but rather what would happen if Mois stopped doing his long list of chores. All of the time he had gotten used to slacking off with would be gone! He'd have to work for hours on end doing thankless jobs for the Hinata family! Oh, he could easily perform the tasks, but he was out of the habit of doing the work and didn't feel like getting back into it.

"Private Tamama." Keroro said, using a rare voice that commanded respect and glowed with discipline and inspiration.

"Sir?" Tamama promptly saluted.

"Angol Mois cannot start working for Kululu." Keroro said sternly.

"What?!" Tamama blanched. He had been hoping his beloved Sergeant would cry about his loss for a few moments before moving on with the short-attention span and perseverence he was (in)famous for, not plot to tear Mois and Kululu apart out of petty laziness.

"Mois hanging out with Kululu means two things, Tamama." Keroro warned, "Firstly, it means that she thinks Tamama is cooler than me, which is unacceptable in itself. Secondly, it means she'll be doing his chores, not mine!"

"Sergeant, don't you think you're being kind of..." Tamama struggled to find the right words, "...insensitive?"

"Insensitive?!" Keroro asked, startled, "What makes you say that, Private?"

"Shouldn't you consider what Kululu and... and that woman want?" Tamama seethed the last part before returning to his usual self, "If they want to hang out, just let them hang out."

"Oh, Tamama." Keroro arrogantly shook his head slowly, "Kululu's probably playing some sick joke on her. You know how sadistic he can be."

"I think you might be in denial, Mr. Sergeant." Tamama eyed his superior worriedly.

"Ridiculous!" Keroro retorted, "I've never been to Egypt!" Tamama sighed, not particularly entertained by the joke. "What? That's a timeless classic!"

"It's deader than the Pharohs, Mr. Sergeant." Tamama deadpanned. Keroro gasped, seemingly offended.

"That was clever, Private." he admitted after a moment of dramatic silence. Tamama brightened at the compliment. "No matter, we're going through with my plan anyway."

"What plan?" Tamama asked, shocked.

"Operation: Get Mois Back, of course."

"You act like she doesn't live here anymore." Tamama sighed, "I'm sure if you just-"

"Private, do I have to make this an order?" Keroro asked.

"No, Mr. Sergeant." Tamama said, sounding bored.

"Great! Now grab whatever kit you need, we're on the bounce." the green frog commanded and his subordinate reluctantly obeyed.

Tamama hadn't expected the situation to take the turn it did. Now he would be forced to try and ruin Kululu and Mois' relationship or earn the disfavour of his Sergeant. Unless, of course, he managed to sabotage the sabotuer...

Angol Mois waited patiently in her Pekopon form outside Kululu's lab. She had finished her chores for the day and was well-rested, ready to enjoy a nice afternoon out with her closest friend and confidant. Kululu had avoided her for the morning, trying to choose a Pekopon suit to use. He was going to use his magical girl suit as a joke. After all, Mois was, for all intents and purposes, a magical girl in a human disguise; Kululu being a Keronian in a magical girl disguise was too funny to pass up. However, Mois reminded him about the last time he had worn the outfit and become a popular icon and how wearing it again might warrant unwanted attention, so he had locked himself in his lab until he could find a proper suit.

Of course, that's what the Yellow Devil told Mois. Being the genius he was, he had already planned ahead and had several other back-up Pekopon suits. It had been an excuse to be left alone while he worked up the nerve to leave the safety of his laboratory and be apart of the outside world. From what he had seen of Pekopon, the people weren't much different than those of Keron and he wasn't sure he wanted to expose himself to the cruelties of the uneducated populace. Even in a disguise, Kululu was off-putting: he usually had a bad slouch, his voice was unnerving, his laugh disheartening and he reeked of curry. Why Mois wanted to hang out with him, of all people, was a mystery to even his intellect.

'Maybe she remembers.' he thought briefly. The thought made him jump and tense, genuine fear seeping into his nerves. He hadn't explored his memories any further, but they had a way of coming back in bits and pieces, creating a collage of his past with Mois. The rose had only been the first in a long line of romantic and intimate gestures, surprisingly mature for his age and surprisingly kind for his sadism. Some of the memories caught him in private moments of weakness, warming his icy heart with bliss before he recognised the sensation and renounced it out of dread. Others made the blood rush to his face in brilliant blushes of embarrassment. If Angol Mois remembered any of their shared memories, she was liable to try and subtly (blatantly) romance him as she had tried for years, unsuccessfully, with her Uncle.

Eventually, growling in frustration, Kululu stood up and got into his Pekopon suit: a simple man-suit wearing a white tee with his spiral symbol in orange, a pair of blue jeans and simple tennis shoes. Before he could let his doubts and second-thoughts hold him up any longer, the Keronian piloted the suit above ground through one of the many hidden Keronian elevators leading from his underground laboratory. He came up right beside Mois, who was distracted by a flock of birds. She turned and wasn't the least bit startled to see Kululu's faces mere inches from hers; Kululu, however, recoiled in surprise.

"Hey Mr. Sinister." Mois greeted with one of her famous, sparkling smiles. Kululu cringed, but regained his poise.

"Good afternoon, Mois." he replied neutrally.

"Ready to head out?"

"Where are we going, anyway?"

"I figured we'd, like, head to the new shopping plaza."

"Sounds crowded."

"I heard they have a new restaurant there that they say serves really good curry~!"

"...Whatever." Kululu submitted, feigning reluctance. Mois smiled, happy that she had roped him into her trip out. Neither of them noticed the two Keronians in stealth-mode following their every step.

"What are they up to, Private?" Keroro asked, hiding in some bushes while Tamama watched Kululu and Mois from behind a pair of Keronian binoculars.

"They're just talking, Sarge." Tamama said, boredom evident in his voice.

"Gero? Talking about what?" Keroro asked, urgently.

"Absolutely nothing, honestly." Tamama groaned, "Just about some new shopping center and a curry restaurant."

"No!" Keroro wailed, quietly enough that their targets wouldn't hear them but loud enough to startle Tamama, "They're already talking like a couple of old friends!"

"And why is that bad?" Tamama asked, surprised.

"She never talked to me like that!" Keroro stated, "She must already be closer friends with the Sergeant-Major than with me!"

"I think you might be overreacting, Mr. Sergeant."

"That doesn't matter!" the Sergeant snapped, "We're going to have to work fast to break them up!"

Even with Tamama's protests, he followed Keroro's lead in their mission of sabotage. With the aide of their invisible cloaking technology, the two Keronians could stealthily tail the unsuspecting auxiliaries of the Keroro Platoon. Keroro allowed himself a smirk of triumph at the thought of outsmarting the smartest soldier under his command. Of course, little did they realise that their loud conversation had attracted the attention of Kululu, but as was typical, he could care less what they were up to. In fact, the thought that his two persuers might disrupt his outing relieved some of his tension.

"Like, did you hear something?" Mois had asked shortly after they began their walk away from the Hinata household.

"Probably just the wind." Kululu lied, "The very stupid, stupid wind. Kukuku!"

The shopping center hadn't been as bad as Kululu suspected it would be. It was simple and efficient in design and its newness guaranteed its cleanliness. Although nothing there was as advanced as Keronian technology, even Kululu could find something in the Pekoponian stores that appealed to a less-intelligent part of himself. One store carried several speciality brands of curry that he was interested in trying. Another shop had the latest music, of which he allowed himself a few CDs, even though he could easily burn them from offline.

The people didn't interfere with him, either. He earned a few confused glances, but whether it was from his yellow-frog head resting on a Pekopon body, or from the fact an attractive teenager was hanging around with him, he couldn't be certain. Even through thick glasses and heavy headphones, Kululu could tell Keroro and Tamama were still tailing them. Whenever Mois did something that made his stomach flip-flop, Kululu would distract himself by trying to pick out the two loud-mouthed Keronians trying to act stealthy. It helped - but not by much.

Angol Mois, on the other hand, was oblivious to the antics of her Uncle. She was too distracted by the sights and sounds of one of the Pekoponian shopping districts she had read so much about. It wasn't as breathtaking as Angol or splendid as Keron, but it had its own unadvanced charm. Actually, with a little more observation, it did look a lot like Keron. In fact, some places looked better than Keron. She quit thinking about the amazingly coincidental similarities between Keron and Pekopon when she saw a particular piece of jewelry in a display case of an already-unpopular store for discount accessories.

"Wow!" she said, a wide smile on her face, "Like, do you see that hair-clip, Sergeant-Major-san?"

"Hmm?" Kululu snapped back to reality, his bored mind having wandered all over creation. He turned towards the display case and felt his ice run cold. The jewlery that caught Mois' eye was a dull yellow plastic shaped into a spiral. His symbol. Overpriced for such a shoddy piece of manufactured material, a ribbon-flag of orange hanging from it, Kululu once again wondered whether Angol Mois had regained her memories and was torturing him silently, or if this was some kind of coincidence.

"Yeah..." he said after awhile, "What about it?"

"I just love the way it looks!" Mois exclaimed, "It, like, reminds me of something... You could say, nostalgia?"

Kululu flinched, terrified that Mois' memories were close to the surface. He felt bad that he hadn't been honest with her, that he remembered everything while memory repression still plagued her, but he just wasn't ready to face those emotions yet. After all, such things had sunk to the bottom of his stomach, long-buried since early childhood. Why stir them up now? Especially on a whim, from some ancient relation to a girl who was madly in love with an idiot? He forced the emotions down, hating himself for being so... Giroro-ish. Oh, how he wished something convenient and out of place would happen that saved him from such an uncomfortable situation...

As if on cue, Keroro and Tamama engaged their first plan to get Mois away from Kululu. It was simple, almost cunning for the green Keronian. He called it 'Operation: Peg Kululu as a Stalker'.

"Oh my God!" Keroro shouted with a poor accent from his invisible position on the ground, "What is that creepy guy in the white tee-shirt doing to that innocent kogal?!"

Immediately everyone began looking around the shopping center, stopping what they were doing in search of the target of Keroro's accusation. There were, surprisingly, several dozen creepy-looking teenagers, young adults and middle-aged men in white tee-shirts within close proximity of young, tanned, blonde women. The creepy men assumed defensive stances, offended by the accusing stares of their fellow shoppers. Tamama facepalmed at Keroro's failed plot. Keroro himself was awestruck, unable to comprehend how that failed until a teenager in heavy punk clothing stepped on his invisible form.

"Ouch!" Keroro shouted in pain, startling the teenager, "Get your boot out of my face!"

"Boots!" Mois exclaimed. She had been completely oblivious to the world around her, deep in thought, until Keroro's pained howls broke through her train of thought, "That's where I've seen the spiral before! It's, like, on my boots!"

"Oh yeah." Kululu said, sighing with relief on the inside. He didn't even bother questioning why Keroro had shouted out what was, obviously, directed towards him and Mois, or why Mois had been so utterly ignorant of all that had been going on around them in that span of time, but thanked his lucky stars that Mois hadn't recovered her memories yet. He wasn't ready for it, and certainly didn't want to deal with it in a public setting.

Still, he couldn't help but wonder how much longer he could keep the information withheld. He laughed the thought off; he was Sergeant-Major Kululu, the Yellow Devil. Deception was his middle name! Surely, with his genius intellect, he could keep Angol Mois from remembering their past together until he could gather his thoughts?

Kululu sighed at his cowardice and continued to follow Mois through the shopping center, hoping their outing would be over soon.


	7. Chapter 7

Kululu had expected the outing to be over by mid-afternoon, but both he and Mois hadn't returned to the Hinata Household until late evening when dusk was beginning to settle. Both of them had an impressive number of bags in both their hands, each having found a number of trinkets worth purchasing. Angol Mois even managed to find a few gifts for her Uncle and the Hinata family that let them live in their basement.

Keroro and Tamama also returned home around the same time, tired and broken from their myriad failed attempts to break Kululu and Mois apart during the shopping venture. Chief among these failures included 'Operation: Shoplifter', 'Operation: Vandal', 'Operation: Collateral Damage' and 'Operation: Tree-Fall'. The first two plots had been attempts to frame Kululu as some form of criminal or another, but after they failed, Keroro had grown desperate and tried to stage some sort of alien attack that would bring Angol Mois back to his side, desperate to do his chores. After that failed (and left both Sergeant and Private with second-degree burns), they had attempted to drop a tree through the new shopping center and close it for the rest of the day, but through a series of mess-ups (mostly on Keroro's part) they failed to even reach the tree before suffering collasal failure.

Mois hadn't noticed any of these endeavours and even Kululu, who knew his Keronian allies were tailing them, couldn't ascertain what they had been up to. All he was sure of was that they were trying to get him into some kind of trouble (and for that he'd be sure they were punished) but to what end he had no idea. Even so, he was thankful for the distractions his two misguided allies had caused. Their antics had helped his mind stray away from the awkward outing with Mois. In retrospect, of course, it hadn't been awkward, but without Keroro and Tamama's annoyances, Kululu was sure he would have read too much into the situation and make a spectacle of himself.

Kululu did not want to be made a spectacle.

Still... Sitting within the recesses of his laboratory - left alone to his own devices after Mois had left him to deliver the gifts she had bought - the scientist had to admit that he had almost enjoyed the experience. It was rare that he went out in public when not on a mission. Even rarer when he went out in a Pekopon disguise instead of cloaked in stealth-mode. Rarer still when no one spared him glares of disgust. To be out was never a pleasant experience for him, but in this instance, with Angol Mois... It had been decent. No disgust from the Pekoponians, a collection of new curry to try and seeing Mois doing something for herself for once.

Kululu sneered at himself for that. Since when did he care that Mois actually stood up for herself?

"Whew, what a long day!" came a familiar, sweet voice dripping with innocence. Kululu flinched at the sudden, unannounced presence. "You could say, physically exhausted?"

"Mois." Kululu spared a look over his shoulder and a neutral greeting. He'd really have to upgrade his security system or something. The fact Mois could avoid his detection equipment was both impressive and frightening.

"So, did you, like, enjoy yourself today?" Mois asked, plopping down on the red couch that Kululu had never gotten around to putting up. As if a reminder of its disuse, Mois' fall onto the couch sent up a small cloud of dust.

"Meh." the yellow Keronian shrugged, "It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be."

"Like, really?" Mois asked, her shining eyes bright with pleasant surprise. Kululu cringed. As was typical lately, Mois had returned to her natural form while in his lab and her eyes had stayed the constant in her existence: deep amber pools of honesty and innocence, of a purity unscathed and yet harbouring a shadow of some untapped memories and pain and loss-

Kululu really needed to purge whatever part of his being kept coming up with such overly-poetic phrasing. It was starting to curdle his stomach.

"Yeah, it was ok." Kululu turned around, giving Mois his full attention, "I wouldn't make a habit of it, though."

"Oh."

A silence followed after that. Kululu was worried he might have disappointed the Angolan girl with his vague, preemptive refusal of future outings, but he wasn't about to retract it. Even with all the unfamiliar emotions swimming back up from their graves in his gullet, Kululu was still Kululu: a secluded, curry-obsessed, sado-masochist with an unnatural affinity for anything science related. He did not enjoy going out often and he did not enjoy frivelous excursions unless they involved things he greatly enjoyed. Like curry. Or destruction. Or destructive curry..? He'd have to save that idea for later, but at the moment he returned his attention back to the Angolan and found that her face didn't display any disappointment, but rather a wandering curiosity. In fact, Kululu would venture to guess that Mois was engaged in some form of introspection. That wouldn't well for him, of course, if she were looking inside herself for what he hoped would stay buried.

"Kululu, I want to try another therapy session." Mois said, as if reading Kululu's present fears and wanting to bring them to life. Oh, how she inadvertently tortured him...

"Kukuku, why now?" Kululu asked with a nervous laugh, trying to stall for time.

"I have the strangest sense of nostalgia. It's, like, I'm living a memory but it's all different now. You could say, deja vu?"

Kululu wouldn't have called it deja vu, per se. It wasn't so much a repeat of specific events and conversations, but rather the simple presence of Kululu and the fact they were hanging out as friends. Kululu thought that observation over. Alright, he figured, Maybe it could be considered deja vu. He'd have to put that on the growing list of 'things Kululu was wrong about that Mois was right about'. Then he'd burn the list, because its very existence was just unnatural.

"Are you sure you don't just have some space worm in your brain?" Kululu asked, trying to avoid Mois' memory recollection, "I hear those are common here."

"I'm sure they would have gone for you first, Kululu-san." Mois smiled brightly, "They'd eat the brains of the smartest one here, wouldn't they?"

"It's uncanny how you can turn anything into a compliment, even a scenario involving my death." Kululu groaned, realising he wasn't getting out of this by any of his usual means. "Alright, let's get started then."

It began at a rather tedious pace, with Angol Mois going over the details of her youth on Angol, the bizarre and almost inhumane series of events that led to her being trapped in a random closet on Keron, and the typical bits and pieces of childhood memory playing games with Keroro or studying on Angol. A few memories included her tutelage and studies on Angol, preparing her for royalty and to fulfill her duty as judge and executioner of a thousand worlds. Angol Mois didn't go into details on the subject, mostly because it was unnecessary, but also because they were secrets of the Angolan hierarchy and even ditsy Mois knew well enough not to pass those secrets, not even to her closest confidant.

Kululu, during all of this, was a nervous wreck. He managed to hide his shaking, but trails of cold sweat began to sting his eyes and he couldn't help but flinch everytime Mois took a pause, trying to remember some detail she left out. He couldn't help but believe that today of all days would be the day she remembered, that after agonising hours of her story-telling and hundreds of close calls, the yellow scientist would think he was in the clear only to have the Angolan teen realise their relationship at the last second. What happened after that, he could only speculate. Anything from her harrassing him to just plain strapping him down and licking him, trying to clean the curry out and bring back her old, blue friend.

Alright, so that last scenario was more of a perverted fantasy that kept creeping into his nightmares that the Yellow Devil wasn't about to admit he actually looked forward to, and like all the other simulations he ran in his head, it terrified him. A deep breath helped him calm down. He was overreacting, of course. How could Angol Mois, after centuries - nay - millenia of repression, suddenly remember that the two of them had a strong friendship, even a budding romance? It was ridiculous! Utterly, unfathombly, ridicu-

"Hey!" Angol Mois shot up from the couch, her eyes widening with terrible realisation.

"What?!" Kululu asked, his voice a little to high-pitched with worry.

"It was you!" Mois pointed towards the scientist. Her eyes were a bit glassy, distant as they searched for the answers she had longed for, but they soon focused on Kululu, hardening with accusation. Her brow furrowed at another realisation that angered her, "And you knew about it!"

Before Kululu could even register what was happening, he fell backwards, the chair he was sitting in falling away as the ground trembled and fell apart, the blocks of his laboratory's flooring crumbling before the radiated anger of the Angolan, her Lucifer Spear in her hands. Kululu fell behind a barricade of broken tiles, the chair shattering behind him. He didn't squirm or duck for cover, too stunned at what was happening. Of all the scenarios he had pictured, it had never once crossed his mind that Angol Mois would get angry. It had never crossed his mind that she was even capable of feeling anger towards anyone except the one's who hurt her Uncle.

"A-Angol Mois!" he managed to get out, the shock wearing off. He wasn't afraid of her, but he was afraid of offending her. Even if he wasn't willing to come to terms with the raging sea of emotions in his gullet, he had already accepted that Mois was a valued part of his environment, as comforting a presence as his screens and even the scent of curry.

Angol Mois wasn't angry though. Whatever rage had been present became a smouldering lump, quickly dying out. Instead, written plain across her face, was the most pained expression Kululu had ever seen. It was not one of fear, or despair, or anguish like he had known and loved; it was a look of betrayal, a mixture of disbelief and the blackest of sadness. She had tears building, her eyes shimmering in a new way that stabbed into Kululu's shriveled heart like a thousand icy barbs. He suddenly felt himself missing the sparkles that had plagued his existence for so long.

"Why?" was the only word she could form, but the word couldn't leave he throat. Kululu knew what she asked, though, and he could only shrug pitifully.

"I... I couldn't... I just couldn't..." the scientist avoided eye contact, fumbling for the right words.

"Couldn't accept it?" Mois guessed, tearful. Her lip quivered and her eyes hardened again, "Couldn't accept me?!"

"Mois! No! Of course not!" Kululu shot back up, trying to think of a way to douse this inferno. How in the name of Frog had this gone so badly so fast? Angol Mois was unflappable, almost impossible to annoy or hurt, let alone break like this. With his high intellect, he reasoned it was due to her re-aquired memories. Some sort of psychological babble that explained why her repression made her ditsy, how this side of her had been locked away with her memories, waiting for a knight in shining armour to rescue her by unlocking their secrets. Instead, the knight had found the keys to the dungeon and decided to wait around until he could work up the guts to unlock the door.

"Then why?" Mois asked, tears breaking from her eyes and ripping pain through Kululu's suddenly-present heart. If emotion were colour, the room would be drowing in explosions of pained purples and passionate reds, black despair hanging over their heads oppressively. Kululu desperately wished he could get her to stop crying, to be happy and ditsy again. Pain and contempt could change a person, any person. It could kill their laughter, sharpen their senses and barb their witticism. Apparently, even Angol Mois' happy-go-lucky attitude could be brought down, even her ditsy persona turned into a rueful shell. "Why not tell me? Why keep putting it off?"

"I needed time to think!" Kululu said and Mois snorted in disbelief. It did seem a little weird that the smartest member of the Platoon, perhaps the smartest being in the cosmos, needed time to think. Kululu supposed that the emotions he had been suffering from were affecting him in a similar way that the pain of betrayal was affecting Mois. While she became bitter and accusing, he became panicked and desperate. He didn't want to face the emotions, but now he had to. "I... I didn't know what I was feeling."

"Maybe you were feeling like a normal Keronian for once!" Mois snapped back at Kululu. Bitterness did indeed barb a person's wit.

Generally, the scientist could care less about such petty insults and attacks on his behaviour, but in this moment of emotional torment and coming from Angol Mois, his closest friend, even he could feel the sting of such words. It wasn't going to make him cry or anything physcial, but it cut deep psychologically. Even though he didn't even twitch, even though his shoulders, tense with emotion, didn't slack, Angol Mois realised how harsh her words had been. She blinked, startled at such cruelty from herself towards one of her friends, and her face softened into a sympathetic frown. The pain in her eyes became a sympathetic pain and she drifted towards the smaller alien. Getting on her knees, being face to face with her oldest and dearest friend, just remembered, she embraced him in a hug. The scientist, who had been stunned, didn't react to the hug for several seconds before hugging her back.

"I'm sorry." Mois whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."

"Don't be." Kululu muttered, "I deserved it. I was being, well... a jerk." The Keronian gave a derisve laugh, and the beginnings of a smile tugged at Mois' face.

"I shouldn't have been, like, so cruel." Mois said quietly, "I was just so mad. It was like I was lost for so long, and you knew how to find me, but you didn't bother to."

"I know." Kululu said, "I should have faced my daemons instead of putting them off. Ku. Listen to me; I sound like Dororo."

"Heh." Mois smiled lightly, giving a mirthless laugh, "I should have been more empathetic with how you were feeling. It's been, like, decades since you last felt anything other than sadism, right?"

"Try millenia, kukuku." Kululu laughed, "Ever since I forgot about you, I felt empty and bitter. Never really liked anyone, never loved anyone."

"Whoa..." Mois blinked, surprise stealing away the last of her sorrow before a butterfly flutter kissed her heart, "Do... do you really mean that, Kululu-kun?" The change of honorific was almost blatantly obvious and Kululu had to fight a blush down. Ugh. He hoped these new lovey-dovey emotions wouldn't change him too much.

"Yeah. I always felt empty until you turned up again. Never knew why until only a few weeks ago, kukuku."

"That's, like, the most romantic thing I've ever heard!" Mois began crying again, but this time with tears of joy that sparkled and sent chills down Kululu's spine. Even after all that, even with how cute Mois looked with her blushing face in her hands, he still had some fear over her sparkles. At least that didn't change.

"Really?" he ignored his fear of sparkles, "I would have figured with all the soap operas you watch, you would've heard thousands of more romantic, cheesy lines."

"Yeah, but those are all scripted. This is real!" Mois brightened. If she only knew, heheheh.

They spent the rest of the day hanging out in Kululu's lab as they always did, reminiscing about old times and rebuilding their friendship. They both recognised the obvious romantic intent the other had for them, but neither acted on it, too afraid to jinx it so early after the last fiasco. So they talked like the old friends they were, slowly adjusting into a new routine that was startling like the old one: Kululu, the creepy scientist and sadist, and Angol Mois, the sweet and innocent planet-killer. The only difference was in the honorifics they used and the way they talked to each other. Both were happy with the friendship, even with the romantic tension hanging over their heads every now and then. Still, something continued to eat away at Kululu's mind.

"Hey, Mois-chan?" Kululu asked while clicking rapidly on a game controller.

"Kululu-kun, if you're trying to distract me again, it's not going to work. You could say 'fool me once, shame on you'?" Mois warned, likewise clicking rapidly on another game controller.

"Kukuku, clever, but not my intent - this time." the scientist snorted in ammusement, "It's just that something about all this keeps bugging me."

"Like, the fact there's only ten maps to choose from?" Mois asked, confused.

"No, not the game." Kululu tsked, "I meant our memory repression."

"What about it?" Mois paused their game.

"Why were our memories repressed in the first place?" the scientist asked, ever the skeptic, "I don't remember anything traumatic. And why would the repression only affect you and me, and only our memories of each other and no one else from our childhood's?"

"Now that you mention it, I wonder why all of my memories of you had, like, Keroro in your place..." Mois tapped a finger to her chin thoughtfully, "You could say 'a conundrum'?"

"You certainly could, Mois." Kululu muttered darkly, looking upwards into the darkness of his lab, "You certainly could."

Somewhere, lightyears away from Earth, an answer was heading for them, determined to repair what had been undone.


	8. Chapter 8

"So, none of you frogs are going to tell me exactly what the heck was causing all that shaking last night?" Natsumi asked, with no small sense of annoyance in her voice, the frogs gathered in her family's living room.

"Now, before we start pointing fingers here," Keroro began defensively, "I had nothing to do with it!"

"Bull!" Natsumi snapped.

"Even I find that hard to believe, Sarge." Fuyuki admitted.

"What?" Keroro blinked, taken aback, "When have I ever lied to you guys?"

"How about everyday since you stupid frogs came to this planet?!" Natsumi growled.

"Well, uh..." Keroro began laughing nervously, "Wait a minute, I'm telling the truth this time! I don't have any idea what was causing all that shaking last night! Honest!"

"While I hate to agree with Keroro," Giroro sighed at having to come to his leader's defense, "I don't believe he had any idea what caused the shaking."

"How do you figure that, Giroro?" Natsumi asked, her tone becoming less demanding and more inquisitve.

"Because I didn't know about it, and this idiot can't get anything done without me." Giroro said in his typical manner.

"Hey!" Keroro exclaimed, but went ignored.

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense." Natsumi nodded in agreement, "But if neither of you have any ideas what was causing all the shaking, what else could it be?"

"Maybe it's just an earthquake?" Fuyuki suggested, "They happen a lot, you know."

"Yeah, but with the frogs in the house, it's never 'just an earthquake'." Natsumi smirked mirthlessly, "It's probably another freaky, alien slug thing with tentacles." She shuddered at the thought of yet another disgusting alien breaking into her house and potentially violating her.

"Boy Natsumi, you sure have that one thought out." Keroro laughed, "Probably fantasize about it-" The green frog was silenced by a powerful kick into a nearby wall. "Gero..."

"Well, don't worry Natsumi." Giroro said with an arrogant smirk on his face, "If there is a dangerous alien out there, I'll protect you."

"Thanks Giroro, but you know I can protect myself." Natsumi jutted a thumb in the direction of Keroro stuck in a wall, "Exhibit A."

"Uh..." Giroro blanked, "Well, the offer's still open."

Before the conversation could continue any further, the group heard approaching footsteps and looked up to quite a surprise. Standing there, in a Pekoponian suit, was Sgt. Major Kululu. His get-up wasn't perverted or whimsical in anyway; just jeans and a T-shirt. Beside him, and this was what made it more surprising, was Angol Mois in her typical, Pekoponian attire with only a subtle difference: she was wearing a yellow armband instead of her green one and a new hair clip. By far, the biggest surprise is what Kululu said after entering the room.

"We're heading out."

That just took the cake. Everyone was too stunned to say anything until the two aliens left. After the door closed, only Keroro and Tamama could react, simultaneously.

"Mission failed! No!" Keroro yelled, tears rolling down his face.

"Mission success! Yes!" Tamama yelled, smiling his brightest smile.

'Mois has left me for the Sgt. Major!' Keroro thought to himself, 'This means I have to go back to doing tedious labor all by myself!'

'That woman ran off with the Sgt. Major!' Tamama laughed wickedly in his thoughts, 'Now I have the Sergeant all to myself!"

"Oh well, I guess I'll just have to get back in shape." Keroro sighed, quickly getting over the loss, "I was getting a little lazy, anyway."

"You were 'getting a little' lazy?!" Natsumi asked, "You're already the laziest person I know!"

"In my defense, you're a pretty harsh taskmaster." Keroro argued.

"What?!" Natsumi growled, "No I'm not!"

"Actually, sis..." Fuyuki coughed, avoiding eye contact when his fearsome sister turned on him, "You can be a bit of a control freak."

"Ugh!" Natsumi groaned in frustrated defeat, "Of course you'd side with him!"

"Well, I think he's pretty lazy too." Fuyuki added.

"Hey!" Keroro interjected.

"I think we're getting off track here." Giroro intervened before yet another argument broke out in the Hinata Household.

"Giroro's right." Fuyuki said, "Weren't we wondering what was up with Mois and Kululu?"

"The creep probably brainwashed her." Giroro growled.

"Or just asked her to wear his colors." Natsumi suggested, "She's not really the kind of person to say 'no', after all."

"I have a feeling Sarge and Private Tamama know why those two are hanging out." Fuyuki looked towards the two frogs who straightened up in surprise.

"W-why would we know anything about that?" Keroro asked, near-panicked.

"Besides the fact you're their commanding officer and should be informed about the men under you?" Giroro stated the obvious.

"Or the fact Mois hangs to you like white on rice." Natsumi pointed out.

"Um..." Keroro mumbled, "I have no idea what you're all talking about. Maybe that guy knows?" The Sergeant pointed a webbed finger toward the Hinata Household's sliding glass door. The others followed the finger and felt their blood run cold at the figure standing outside the transparent doors.

Meanwhile, Kululu and Angol Mois were already a few blocks away from the Hinata Household, enjoying their walk. A week ago, Kululu would have found the idea of him going out on walks in a Pekoponian-suit ridiculous, walking with Angol Mois utterly improbable and finding himself enjoying the whole experience abosolutely impossible. Yet there he was, walking with Mois for no reason except to walk with her, and enjoying himself doing it. There was no specific destination, no specific errand to run; they were just out and about, prepared to roam the city in search of some form of entertainment or another.

"Maybe we should go see, like, a movie?" Mois suggested.

"Maybe." Kululu shrugged, "What kind of movie?"

"Something romantic and cute!" Mois brightened again and Kululu flinched back from the sparkles that always seemed to radiate off of her. Sure they were close now, but only in private moments of weakness would Kululu ever like those sparkles.

"I prefer horror movies." Kululu said, "Something with insane Pekoponian scientists playing with powers they shouldn't and dooming themselves, and everyone around them, speaks to me, kukuku."

"Horror movies?" Mois repeated, a smile tugging at her lips, "How about horror/comedy? You could say, 'splatstick'?"

"Mois, I forgot you were into that sort of thing, kukuku." Kululu snorted.

"D-don't say it like that, Kululu-kun!" Mois blushed, leading to Kululu to laugh more.

"I remember when we were kids and we found that dead animal in the woods." Kululu recalled with an out-of-place wistful smile, "You were the only person I knew that took as much interest in decomposing, brutalized corpses as I did at the time. We stared at that carcass for hours, trying to figure out what had wrecked it so bad."

"I remember." Mois shared the smile while her eyes became far away with memories, "Remember the smell? You could say 'roses and mustard gas'?"

"And the coppery tinge of blood staining the air." Kululu added.

"And the ground!" Mois laughed and Kululu joined her. In their stroll down Memory Lane, only a few other pedestrians had heard snips of their conversation and quickly shuffled past the two aliens, not wanting to hear anymore details. The laughter ended with a shared sigh of satisfaction.

"We could go to the arcade." Kululu suggested, still fishing for ideas of what to do.

"Ooo, that would be fun!" Mois smiled brightly and Kululu aboided staring directly into the sparkles lest he be blinded, "We could play that new magical girl fighting game!"

"Kukuku. Is it sad I was thinking the same thing?"

Kululu and Mois shared a laugh at his expense before heading to the arcade. They had almost made it there before Kululu's head-set and Mois' cell phone went off simultaneously. Kululu groaned, prepared to blow the call off, but Mois - true to form - immediately answered. Seeing no reason not to now that Mois was occupied, Kululu answered his as well.

"Like, hello?" Mois asked.

"You've got Kululu." Kululu answered his head-set nonchalantly.

"You two should get back to the house." a monotone Keroro told both Angol Mois and Kululu simultaneously, "We have a bit of a situation."

"Gah, can't you solve it? I'm on my day-"

"Like, sure thing Uncle!" Mois said without really thinking. After all, Keroro needed her, and whether she no longer obsessed over him or not, he was still a very old and very dear friend.

"Great. Thanks." the monotone voice replied before hanging up. Kululu sighed.

"Let's go, Mister Sinister." Mois smiled, immediately washing away Kululu's frustrations, "Uncle sounded a little sick, didn't he?"

"Or depressed." Kululu shrugged, now indifferent to turning around and walking back to their home.

"That could be even worse..." Mois looked a little crestfallen.

"Buy him a Gundam and he'll recover from anything, kukuku."

Kululu's remark brought a little glimmer back into Mois' eyes and she shared a smile with him. Neither of them had any idea what they were walking into. Neither had a single memory of this old foe, lost even after the recollection of their memories.

Neither was aware that they were about to find their answers, sooner than they had hoped.


End file.
